DRUG LOVING TOURISTS' NEW HOT SPOT: LAOTIAN OPIUM DENS

Travel: Authorities in most Southeast Asian nations have yet to crack down
on this branch of the international narcotics trade.

Muang Sing, Laos- The dealers hang around the edge of an open-air restaurant
bustling with backpacking tourists, most of whom spent two days getting here
over barely passable mountain roads.

They know why the foreigners have come. The least eye contact triggers a
pantomimed puff on a pipe and insistent sales pitch: "Oh-pee-um! Oh-pee-um!"

Opium, at 50 cent a dose.

One by one, the tourists - Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Australians,
Japanese - head of to smoke their fill through a bamboo pipe under a tree or
at a makeshift den.

"I'm doing a drug tour of Southeast Asia," said Gareth, a 21-year-old
Australian whose T-shirt is stained ocher from road dust. "I've been to
Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, but so far, Laos is tops."

Nestled in the Laotian highlands near China and Myanmar, Muang Sing is the
hottest new stop on an informal but well-trod trail through Asia for
travelers whose main aim isn't a suntan or the sights but sampling the
various ways of getting high.

The trail stretches as far as India and Nepal, from where hippie tourist in
the 1970s took home stories about turning down cheap, fist-sized chunks of
hashish since marijuana was freely available.

But the core trail for dope-seeking tourists nowadays is Thailand and
Indochina. They arrive in Bangkok on cut-rate air tickets, check in at seedy
guesthouses on Khao San Road, buy cheap tie-dye T-shirts and cotton
trousers, and head out.

One of their stopping places is the $2-a-night No. 9 guesthouse - formerly
the Cloud 9 - in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Travelers there said a common odyssey can involve cavorting with the party
drug Ecstasy at an all-night "rave" on a Thai island, followed by a trek
through the "Golden Triangle" opium country in northern Thailand, then
crossing into Laos.

For them, "Laos is tops" because opium is cheaper and more openly available
and - thus far - police seem unsure how to handle the drug trekkers.

The trail then shifts to Vietnam, north to south, where narcotics are more
discreet, then crosses into Cambodia, where marijuana can be had at a Phnom
Penh market for $2.25 a pound.

Relatively few drug travelers do the full circuit, and there are no
statistics on their overall numbers.

Seangdaern Boonlert, president of the Trekking Association of Northern
Thailand, an umbrella group of 100 tour companies, estimates that in
Thailand alone drug travelers account for a fifth to the 150,000 people a
year who take organized trips through the northern highlands.

"We've been talking with the police about this for 10 years," Saengdaern
said. "They say the only solution is to completely shut down trekking.

But treks are important to the local economy - a three-day, two-night
expedition typically runs $50 a person - and most tourists never touch
opium.

Drug travelers include a small minority of burnouts with thousand-yard
stares. Gareth, the Australian in Muang Sing, was unable to talk of much
besides opium, Ecstasy, speed and marijuana.

Most, however, are kids from affluent families taking a break from college,
or young workers on a fling, indulging in what they see as adventure in an
exotic locale where no one knows them.

They don't give full names to journalists, fearing attention from
authorities when they head home.

A generation ago, such drug tourists would have had to go elsewhere. Loatian
communists shut down opium dens and most contact with the outside world
after taking power in 1975. But visa controls have gradually eased, and the
government hopes to double the number of visitors to 1 million during 1999,
which has been dubbed "Visit Laos Year."

One result is an influx of opium-seekers.

In Muan Sing, opium is sold by local addicts - increasing their dependency
on the drug for income - but the whole town shares the prosperity. The
tourists are the only source of hard currency.

"Not long ago, there was only one television and on generator in this town,"
said Seng Maka, who just opened a 10-room hotel. "Now there are many. Every
year, the number of tourists is growing."

Police in Muang Sing show distaste for the scruffy travelers, but little
sign of hassling them.

But the U.N. Drug Control Program's representative in Laos, Halvor Kilshus,
said at a news conference Feb. 23 that he had told officials that Laos risks
a damaged image if it becomes seen as an opium haven.

"We have yet to receive a formal report from the narcotic authority
regarding the matter and haven't reached any conclusion," said Sanya Abhay,
vice president of the National Tourism Authority.

But if opium tourism "becomes a trend, it would be really bad for Visit Loas
Year," Sanya said.

Authorities are working on brochures to warn foreigners of Laotian laws,
Sanya said. Smoking opium is punishable by three to 10 years in jail;
possession of less than a kilogram (2.2 pounds) is punishable by two to
seven years.

Drug trekkers generally stay away from the countries that are toughest on
drug use - Singapore and Malaysia, which warn travelers with signs
announcing that the death penalty applies to narcotics smugglers.

But drugs are illegal everywhere in Southeast Asia. Many travelers mistake
their easy availability and infrequent arrests with official acceptance.

Thailand's prisons are filled with hundreds of foreigners serving life terms
for dug trafficking in overcrowded cells where, former inmates say, eating
rats and cockroaches is necessary to survive.

In a foreign environment they seldom understand, travelers seeking a big
score can easily run afoul of guest-house owners or the police, who may have
a stake in the business.

Still, Cambodian police Gen. Skadavy Math Lyroun, deputy secretary general
of the National Authority for Combatting Drugs, says drug-using backpackers
are a low priority.

More important, he said, is rooting out police corruption - rival gangs of
anti-drug officers and military police battled with guns in Phnom Penh last
year over drug turf - and shutting down big drug shipments.